The authors employed Latane and Darley's model about bystanders' behavior to explain children's active defending and passive bystanding behavior in school bullying. The three central steps of the model were operationalized by measuring provictim attitudes, personal responsibility for intervention, and coping strategies. Moreover, the role of…

Peer influence and social interactions can give rise to spillover effects in which the exposure of one individual may affect outcomes of other individuals. Even if the intervention under study occurs at the group or cluster level as in group-randomized trials, spillover effects can occur when the mediator of interest is measured at a lower level…

Traumatic childhood experiences have been found to predict later internalizing problems. This prospective longitudinal study investigated whether repeated and intentional harm doing by peers (peer victimization) in childhood predicts internalizing symptoms in early adolescence. 3,692 children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and…

In a group situation, something goes wrong but no individual feels personal responsibility. This is called the "pie" phenomenon because everybody has a piece of the action, but all believe they are innocent. Each contributes to contagion and chaos but all say, "We didn't do nothing." In this article, the author, a pioneer in work with troubled…

Marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug, and the use of marijuana has been linked to a wide array of maladaptive outcomes. As a result, there is great interest in identifying the factors that are associated with the use of marijuana and with desistance from marijuana. The current study employed a life-course framework to examine the factors…

Both music preferences and the substance use behavior of peers are important elements in explaining adolescent substance use. The extent to which music preference and peer use overlap in explaining adolescent substance use remains to be determined. A nationally representative sample of 7324 Dutch school-going adolescents (aged 12-16) provided data…

This study supported the use of acceleration for gifted minority students in math. The gifted minority students in this study viewed taking accelerated math courses as exciting and beneficial for preparation for high school and college and particularly liked the challenges they encountered while taking advanced classes. They enjoyed working ahead…

Positive Peer Culture [PPC] creates a pro-social climate in schools and youth programs by enlisting youth in helping their peers. Research and training in PPC is coordinated by the Academy for Positive Peer Culture. Established in 2006, the Academy provides networking and is a clearinghouse for resources, training, and consultation for PPC. It…

Background: Interest among social scientists in peer influences has grown with recent resegregation of the nation's schools and court decisions that limit the ability of school districts to consider race in school assignment decisions. If having more advantaged peers is beneficial, then these trends may reduce educational equity. Previous studies…

The purpose of the quantitative descriptive study was to gain an understanding of the motivating factors leading high school students from rural and urban schools to receive a diploma. A revised version of the High School Motivation Scale (Close, 2001; Solberg et al., 2007) generated from SurveyMonkey.com was administered to high school graduates…

This study examined how perceived social support from parents, classmates, and teachers jointly and uniquely predicted psychopathology (i.e., internalizing and externalizing symptoms) and wellness (i.e., life satisfaction) in a sample of 390 middle-school students. This study also explored the protective nature of high student academic achievement…

Mexican American adolescents have higher rates of externalizing problems than their peers from other ethnic and racial groups. To begin the process of understanding factors related to externalizing problems in this population, this study used the social development model (SDM) and prospective data across the transition to junior high school from…

This study examined the effects of social support components and providers on mental health and sexual orientation (SO) milestones of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youths. Data were collected on 461 self-identified LGB adolescents and young adults. Family acceptance and support yielded the strongest positive effect on self-acceptance of SO,…

Drawing on a symbolic-interaction perspective and a compensation model, the processes linking mother- and father-adolescent relationship qualities, deviant peer affiliations, and adolescents' sexual intentions were investigated for 246 Mexican-origin youths born in the United States and in Mexico using multiple-group structural equation models.…

Co-rumination, defined as repetitive, problem-focused talk explains higher levels of friendship quality in youth (Rose, 2002) and increased levels of anxiety/depression in females. Middle adolescents (N = 146) participated in a study of co-rumination, individual coping, externalizing/internalizing problems, and peer functioning. Consistent with…